Particle Swarm Optimization (PSO) is an optimization technique inspired by social behaviors in nature, developed by Jim Kennedy and Russ Eberhart in 1995. The algorithm uses a population of particles that adjust their positions based on their own best experiences and those of their neighbors, balancing exploration and exploitation in a multidimensional search space. Key parameters like inertia weight and velocity control allow for effective searching, making PSO a simple, efficient, and adaptable optimization method with no elimination of candidate solutions.